Premier David Eby backed away from a marquee promise of his election campaign Thursday, parking a $1,000 grocery rebate for British Columbians in the face of a looming trade war with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
Eby said his government is entirely focused on responding to Trump’s threat of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, and everything else, including the much-hyped rebate, is now on the backburner.
“In terms of the rebate, in terms of any government program, our No. 1 priority right now is protecting B.C. families from this threat,” he said.
“This is a very serious matter, and it is our No. 1 priority right now.”
The grocery rebate had been the centrepiece of the NDP’s affordability agenda. But it now appears casualty No. 1 in what Eby called an “economic war” sparked by the United States.
The core of the issue is the high cost of the rebate, estimated at $1.8 billion in the first year, and then $1.3 billion annually. That would fund an up to $1,000 rebate cheque for families in the first year, and an income tax cut going forward.
The U.S. trade war could blow a $2.5-billion revenue hole in the budget, and sideswipe the provincial economy to the tune of $69 billion, according to an economic analysis Finance Minister Brenda Bailey released Thursday. In such a scenario, B.C. couldn’t afford to follow through with the rebate or tax cut.
Families that were supposed to get an up to $1,000 cheque to help address cost-of-living challenges will no doubt be displeased to hear the measure is paused indefinitely.
But the rebate was on shaky ground even before Trump.
Though useful as an election promise, the measure no longer aligned with Eby’s post-election pledge to get provincial spending under control. Internally, New Democrats were struggling to figure out how to find the money within a record $9.5 billion deficit, even before the Trump threat.
Bailey tried to defend the idea last month during an economic update, but also said — in retrospect, what was a telling comment — that “promises that are made during an election period are delivered on during a mandate, a four-year time frame.”
The premier made no mention of the rebate in his mandate letter to Bailey released on Thursday.
“I think, once again, he is using Donald Trump as an excuse,” said B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad.
“He’s running a nine-and-a-half billion[-dollar] deficit. There’s no question in my mind they are out of money. They know that the economy is slowing down. They know that they’ve got problems.”
He called Eby “a liar” for promising an immediate rebate, which is now anything but immediate.
“The only thing he intended to do is try to get elected,” he said.
There is irony in the NDP slow-walking its grocery rebate, after an election campaign in which it mocked a Conservative proposal to let people write off housing expenses as too slow and failing to provide immediate aid.
“John says he cares about affordability for people, but the one thing that's in his control, the tax cut that he's proposing, the Rustad long-wait, you have to wait years to access it,” Eby said during the election radio debate.
“This is something we can do right now to support families, not down the road, not if the federal government does this or that, not in 2029, right now, because people need support.”
It turns out, the public gets neither the aid promised by the NDP nor the Conservatives. Instead, British Columbians are stuck with the messy fallout from an egomaniacal American president hitting them in their wallets in more ways than one.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
